Bow Down to Willingham: Notre Dame is Vindicated

With the new book Bow Down to Willingham now available, some indelible thoughts linger from having researched and written it. My mind keeps going back to September 2005, when the Irish came to Seattle to take on Tyrone Willingham’s Washington Huskies. The fact these two teams were scheduled to play then was a massive irony, given that Notre Dame had fired Willingham ten months earlier. And within days, Washington had rushed with haste to hire him as its football coach.

Now the teams were squaring off in Husky Stadium, in a game the Irish would ultimately win 36-17. ABC’s pre-game show, televised nationally, featured a pre-recorded interview of Tyrone Willingham that was conducted by John Saunders. The dialogue included this infamous exchange:

John Saunders: You weren’t just coming in and taking over a program that was storied and had stumbled on hard times. You were taking on a program that had stumbled into some scandal. You cleaned ALL of that up, and your reward was to get fired.
Willingham: That’s life, you know, and that’s what I prepared myself for when I took over the job. They say that the microscope is big there. No question about that. But I prepared myself for all of that, and as an African-American coach, your position is somewhat tenuous. There are not a lot of guarantees, as a matter of fact, there are not a lot of coaches getting positions, period, okay, so tenuous may be an understatement.

Saunders: You weren’t given the five years that other coaches got to demonstrate those skills. Do you think it is in part because you’re an African-American?

Willingham: I’ve always said that in this country there is no absence of racism, okay, we’re all aware of that, it’s been here for quite some time, okay. And to think it would NOT factor in may be naive on my part. But the people that really know that answer are the ones that we need to talk to.
Saunders: In my mind, I thought it was handled terribly and I thought what they did was wrong and unfair.

Willingham: Well then the question then becomes, if that is true, what is the responsibility of the individual? If they’re wrong, they have to live with that. But I must handle Tyrone Willingham in the right manner. Regardless of what they do, you are to handle yourself as a true professional, a true man of integrity.

Notre Dame fans across the country stared in disbelief at their TV screens. They felt blind-sided and stunned. Some in the national press and countless fans had already excoriated the Fighting Irish as being a racist institution, by virtue of firing the only black coach in their storied history after only three seasons. Willingham’s comments merely threw another log onto the fire of public opinion. There was nothing Notre Dame could do to defend itself, because much of America had already made up its mind.

The Board of Trustees at Notre Dame had seen something in Willingham that caused them alarm. But nobody else from around the country understood, or even wanted to understand. Many were delighted at the negative press directed at South Bend, Indiana.

Three years later, in October 2008, Notre Dame and Washington prepared to play again at Husky Stadium. Washington was 0-6, and Willingham was 11-31 overall as Husky coach. Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times contacted Tim Prister, senior editor of Irish Illustrated. Prister verified that Notre Dame fans were relishing in UW’s mighty struggles.

“I think that there is a sense among fans that Notre Dame was criticized unjustly for the firing of Tyrone Willingham, so by him struggling at Washington, I think there is a pretty sizable section of the fan base that thinks we’ve been vindicated, and that the move has been justified,” Prister said.

Prister was referencing the win-loss record; but like an iceberg, there was so much more under the surface, mostly hidden and unseen to the public.

As I began researching for the book, I possessed a fair amount of inside information about how bad things were during Willingham’s tenure at Washington. But as the interviews began, I was taken aback. Willingham seemed to think recruiting was beneath him and expended very little effort doing so, a trait that the Notre Dame board of trustees seemed to have picked up on. He often communicated with his UW players in an arrogant and ineffective manner. He delegated all coaching duties to his assistants, and players often privately wondered where their head coach had disappeared to. The performance of his assistant coaches arguably hindered the development of key players, namely quarterback Jake Locker (a chapter in the book features an interview with analyst Hugh Millen, called “The Miseducation of Jake Locker”). Finally, Willingham frequently punished players he simply didn’t approve of by keeping them on the bench or taking away their senior years.

What made this story both intriguing and tragic was the contrast between the reality of Willingham’s tenure and the worship and adulation heaped upon him by Seattleites and local media. For a random example, I remember watching one game during the 0-12 nightmare season of 2008, as the camera zoomed in on Willingham’s stoic face as he stared toward the field. Color commentator Kelly Stouffer made a comment that caused me to throw my cup across the room. “What is so wrong,” he asked, “with allowing this man of integrity to finish the job he was brought here to do?”

I also remember the words of Fred Mitchell, author of the 2002 book Tyrone Willingham: The Meaning of Victory. “Stoic, unflappable, determined –all words used to describe Tyrone Willingham– also represent the remarkable character of a man whose entire life has demanded poise under pressure.”

The manner in which society felt the need to build Willingham into a hero and project grandiose qualities upon him is staggering. And tragic. His influence brought Husky football to ruin, and wreaked havoc on the playing careers of many players. I’ve even wondered what hell it must have been for Willingham himself, living inside that myth and striving to maintain the image foisted upon him by those who championed his cause.